


red

by moonemoji



Category: iKON (Korea Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-01-17 11:51:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12365169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonemoji/pseuds/moonemoji
Summary: it was the neighbourhood that was the problem. and that’s what they failed to see, while it was everything that he saw.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> hello this might be rly sad sorry also if ur worried about a story where love is the cure to Depression it isn't the case here

jiwon was bored. 

was it any surprise that he was? no. he always was. so much so that a rumour started going around in his neighbourhood: _did you hear about that kim jiwon?_ _he never laughs, never smiles, not even so much as twitches the corner of his mouth upwards in amusement, in scorn, in anything!_

they never reasoned that it was because he was never amused, or happy, or content, he was never even truly bored; he was never anything, he was numb. some people say they feel holes in their chest, an empty space where they can physically feel that something’s missing. jiwon’s empty space grew with every day he lived in this neighbourhood until it was all-consuming, and at that point he didn’t try to fight it off. he let it rip him apart and leave him nothing but a zombie that hardly thought about what he was doing. 

yet he was ridiculed for it, shunned because he joined the neighbourhood gatherings and didn’t smile at anyone who smiled at him. no one asked if he was alright, never asked if something had happened, instead they said  _ why don’t you ever laugh?  _ or  _ what’s so terrible that you can’t give us  _ one  _ smile? _

it was the neighbourhood that was the problem. and that’s what they failed to see, while it was everything that he saw. 

he used to cry himself to sleep, he felt so alone among people who saw him as a freak. 

this was back when he felt like there was anything worth crying over. 

this neighbourhood was a small one, made up of 75 people, including his mom who’d forgotten who he was at this point, who he stopped seeing just because it was easier, just because there was no longer a point when she treated him with as much familiarity as the rest of the town. it was the only world he ever knew, the only 74 other people he ever knew, and they acted like they never knew him.

they had social gatherings almost every day. movie nights, game nights, nights for just the adults, nights for just the kids. they always wanted to be together like a 75-membered family that gained and lost naturally, that everyone felt welcomed to, everyone but him.

not that he blamed them because he thought about it before, and concluded that he wouldn’t want to welcome someone who only looked beyond the welcome sign as if all he wanted to do was leave, either. 

leave to where? he didn’t know. didn’t have an idea of what was out there, it scared him. and it’s not that he didn’t know there was a world beyond the borders of his town, but there were never stories of anyone leaving, nor one of anyone coming in. so the thought that he could leave had never occurred to him, but he had dreams of it, of running away. 

and his dreams were vivid, bone-chilling, they were ingrained in his mind no matter how much he wanted to forget. 

it was just him on the road, and all 74 people gathered behind him, they were all watching but no one was crying, no one but him. and it was so real that he felt the cold wind rushing to his face to wipe his tears away, to push his hair back and howl in his ears,  _ you’re free, kim jiwon, you’re finally free! _

but then he woke up, and he never woke up with a smile on his face because somehow he knew before the dream even ended that it was never real. he woke up and he’d cry, curl up in himself and cry over the walls that surrounded him not just in his room but in the town he’d grown up in. the weight of everyone and everything in the small neighbourhood with nothing to offer had been tied to his ankles and wrists from the second he opened his eyes. 

he was never meant to leave, no one was, and he knew that. there was no world out there for a person like him, and he knew that, too. he accepted it. he grew up and he swallowed the fact that he’d die where he was born. 

—

the day after he saw a flower pop out of the snow, he stepped outside for the first time in two weeks (it was getting hard to get out of bed, he didn’t eat for 4 days because he couldn’t find it in him to leave), and went to the grocery store. 

he kept his eyes on his feet because he already knew the way there, he knew the streets like they were the lines on his palm and he knew what they looked like, knew there was nothing to see. he didn’t know why, but everyone had the same house, the same exterior design as well as colour.

maybe it was because there was only one architechtual business in town, but he felt like there was something more than that. he couldn’t help but feel like he was in a cult when he saw the way his house looked just like everyone else. even his house belonged more than he did. 

he regretted leaving his bed. 

but it was too late now, the ring of the grocery store bell rang and the owner looked up with a smile on her face, only for it to fall when she saw jiwon. not that jiwon blamed her (he seemed to never blame anyone), he hadn’t showered in 2 weeks, only tossed on an overswized sweater over his pajamas, and doubted he looked any better than he smelled. 

he didn’t say anything. he looked at the owner for as long as the owner looked at him, and she didn’t seem to want to look at him for very long. he went to the aisle with all the brand name chips he always questioned the presence of ( _ people know we’re here? _ ), and grabbed the ones he knew didn’t taste bad. 

he gathered his meals for the next few weeks and paid with the ambiguous amount of money he had from his mother’s account. he never wanted to check, he figured he wouldn’t be able to afford an airplane ticket and that’s all he ever wondered, anyway.

on his way home he looked up this time, he wanted to force himself to look at the place he’d settled for in the hopes of evoking some sort of motivation to move, but he felt nothing. 

his thoughts were cut off by the loud beeping of a large moving truck backing up into a driveway. it was such a foreign sight that he stopped in his tracks and watched as the driver perfected its position so a group of workers could pull the doors of the truck open. it was mesmerizing, to say the least. not just because he’d never seen it before, but because there was finally someone moving. 

and though mesmerizing to him, he knew the rest of the town wouldn’t like it. maybe because they showed how much they didn’t like him, but also maybe because he overheard two ladies talking about the couple who lived in the house. one was offered a job overseas, the other was someone who wasn’t born here and didn’t mind leaving.  _ this is why people shouldn’t move in, they come in and they—they wreck everything!  _ was the last jiwon heard before going back to his house, the one that stood just as everyone else’s did. 

the fact that he’d never heard of a foreigner moving in in the first place made him feel like this was a dream, another one of his fantasies about leaving. the next morning he walked out to the street to see if the moving truck was still there, and when he saw it was gone, he couldn’t help but feel his heart twitch. maybe it was a dream after all, maybe there was a physical forcefield keeping them in, and everyone else out. 

yet still he couldn’t shake the feeling of it, of curiosity, of wonder. he never realized then that it was the first he felt anything in a long time. 

for the next 6 weeks, jiwon left his house for an hour, or two, or five, to sit on a bench that was close enough to watch the house, but not close enough to be right in front of it. there were a lot of benches put up around the town, they were for all the festivals and gatherings that were thrown, but when he was a kid he thought everyone just got tired quickly and needed to rest frequently. 

he watched as the only retailer’s ad was spiked through the front lawn, watched some people from different parts of town come in and walk out, realizing that it was exactly the same as their current house. 

it was true, then. they really had moved out. but who would move in? that’s what kept him interested, that’s what made him forget about the giant nothingness in his body that relentlessly squeezed at his brain and his heart, refusing to be forgotten. he knew it was temporary, but spending most of your life feeling like nothing is worth anything, you have to hold on to the small glitches in the system.

it took 6 weeks for the sign to say SOLD, and when he watched the retailer put the indication on his ad, he looked over at jiwon without saying a word, then walked back to his car. jiwon looked back without shame reddening his cheeks for he knew everyone saw and acknowledged that he only sat there to watch the house, that he might as well have sat on the sidewalk right across from it, but he didn’t care. his curiosity overrode everything else, and now it had grown 10-fold to compensate for the stagnation over the last few weeks. 

who was moving in? would they start to belong more than he did? he didn’t know if his heart could handle it if that happened. 

the next couple days was a blur. he wasn’t shocked by the way almost the whole block he lived on helped this new guy move in. he greeted them all with a smile, possibly the biggest he’d ever seen, and with warmth that jiwon was a stranger to, that he always witnessed from the outside.

the lady was wrong, jiwon thought, outsiders could never ruin this town any further, but they could continue to ruin him. 

he stopped leaving his house. the curiosity left him just as quickly as it had come, though this time it was expected. he knew who moved in, and he knew they’d get along with everyone. that he’d fit in, and belong more than he ever could despite being born there. 

plus, as shameless as jiwon was, he knew when to give someone privacy. he didn’t need to be labelled as the town’s freak by another person. not that he wasn’t certain others were already telling him stories. 

maybe it was his destiny.

—

it was when jiwon needed to restock his easy-meals inventory a few weeks later that they first met. he dropped an armful of chips on the counter and was already taking out his card, when the cashier decided to make small talk. 

“have you just moved in recently? i have too, but i haven’t seen you before. they threw a welcoming party, and i met everyone there.” he said, evidently someone that talked too much and too openly to people he didn’t know. 

jiwon didn’t say anything at first, and just looked at his nametag.  _ junhoe _ . “no.” he replied, and saw the change in junhoe’s eyes from friendliness to recognition. 

so they did talk about him, he concluded, and took the bags without another word. 

for the first time in 6 years that night, he cried himself to sleep. 

—

it was when jiwon couldn’t sleep a few months later that he sat on the sidewalk across the street from junhoe’s house. 

usually, he’d walk down the street, across the town, or just lay in bed until the sun rose again. but there was something about junhoe, something that made his stomach twist and his eyes well up. 

is it because you smile? jiwon thought to himself, his eyes on the house whose lights had been laid to sleep already. he didn’t know how long he sat there, didn’t know why it was so important for him to be accepted by a group of people who made him feel nothing, but if they could accept a newcomer, why couldn’t they accept him? they’ve known him all his life, and yet they treated this new guy like he more of a family to them than he ever was. 

maybe it was better for outsiders to stay outside. 

—

the new year came as quickly as it came every year, and just as he did each time, he looked back on his year looking for anything memorable and came up with nothing. nothing but the look in junhoe’s eyes when he realized jiwon was the man everyone whispered about, the man who everyone hated and stopped inviting to their gatherings. 

jiwon didn’t care how junhoe looked at him, or how anyone else did, for that matter. he didn’t care, not anymore. 

yes, he was sad at first. yes, he thought a newcomer moving in would mean that there’d be a clean slate with somebody avoiding him wherever he went, but not anymore. there was no hope in anyone, not in anyone new, not in himself. 

he should have learned this before, but his naivety was now buried under the realities he’d gone through. better late than never. 

the new years gathering out in the streets was the only one he ever consistently went to. it had the most food, it was when people were more willing to talk to him. maybe it was in their resolutions:  _ give jiwon another chance _ . that one they broke easily. 

he spent his time at the party eating, as he always did, and watching everyone else interact. he responded to people’s attempts at conversing with him with grunts as he was almost always eating, and the conversations never seemed to last more than a single grunt or two. 

junhoe got along with everyone so well, he noticed. not accidentally, his eyes searched for junhoe the moment he arrived, and never left him once they’d found their target.

he talked to everyone easily, and his smile never left his face. the only time he’d seen it falter was when he first realized who jiwon was, and even now he wondered if junhoe was avoiding looking at him, in the fear that he’d have to talk. 

jiwon always stayed last at this party. not because he wanted to help clean up (which he still did reluctantly), but because he wanted to see if anyone would ask him to go home since he was killing the mood. it was a little pathetic when he thought about it, but no one usually asks him, and that fact alone makes him feel like there was something inside him, that he was a person to be considered instead of the empty outline of a person he usually felt like he was. 

“hey,” junhoe said to him when they passed each other while picking up discarded cups, with the smile he gave to everyone else, the same warmth he’d seen junhoe offer to only other people. 

jiwon grunted in response, not because he was eating but because he was taken aback, and simply cleaned before going home, his eyes this time avoiding junhoe rather than searching for him. 

—

it was when jiwon took his 6th nap of the day when he was awoken by a mob of murmuring he couldn’t decipher. the sun shone in his eyes without rest and the noise failed to be drowned out with the pillow he placed over his head. 

the stagnant life he lived had remained the same, quiet, unchanging life he’d been living since he was born. except ever since last spring, to this one, he had a new cashier who saw the diet plan he had made for himself. small moments sometimes happened, like junhoe moving in or the time some kid lost his bicycle, but they were fleeting moments that hardly raised his lifeline, if at all. 

this, though. this was something else. 

almost the entire town gathered in his block, and seeing everyone actually gathered for once, he realized just how little 73 people actually was. 

he thought about running in that moment. running through the streets like his dreams used to show him, feeling the wind wipe away his tears and leave the world he knew behind. 

but there was no point, and there was something more interesting. 

a few houses down, junhoe was painting his house. a bright red that said the word  _ pop  _ so beautifully and perfectly in his mind that jiwon stepped closer, hoping to hear more. 

he wanted to see the red on the house fare with the red on junhoe’s cheeks, which seemed to have spent too much time in the spring wind that had yet to transition from winter. he wanted to hear the fire crackle in his ears and sting his fingers when he got too close, he wanted to feel alive again and the simple colour was not the solution to his stagnation, it was the destruction of this neighbourhood.

it was the change. it was the fact that not everything had to stay the same, it was the fact that not everyone who lived here had to fit in. 

all the houses lined up on the block (and all the ones in the rest of the town) were painted the same shade of yellow that was so perfectly neutral and happy that it made jiwon sick, sometimes. and this was an ugly shade of red, jiwon thought. but so was the yellow. 

“it’s alright, it’s alright!” he heard junhoe say in the undeniably cocky tone of voice that seemed to be a default for him. “i can do it myself, i want to do it myself.” 

he was talking to the architect, someone jiwon didn’t doubt was offended by the differing preference in colour. 

at this point he’d walked closer to the house than anyone else has. they were only a few feet behind him but he figured they were too scared to approach junhoe. did they think he’d gone crazy? but it wasn’t junhoe who’d gone crazy at this point, it was him. 

it was the euphoria of seeing something so familiar get destroyed, it was the break from a stagnant world like a breath of fresh air after he’d been suffocated for so long that made him want to go around the neighbourhood and paint every house a different colour than the last. he wanted to paint his skin pink and his hair orange, he wanted to paint the grass and change the colour of the sky. he hated the world he knew and the colours he’d been so familiar with. he needed them to change, he needed the red to be everywhere.

everyone started mumbling his name, he knew because it caught junhoe’s attention and junhoe looked over at him along with everyone else. 

jiwon didn’t care, he didn’t care about anything. if junhoe wanted to paint his house red, he didn’t care. it’d make this town the same town he’d lived in forever, he didn’t care. he could change the colour of his house but he’d never change the grass, or the sky, or the people who hated jiwon for breathing in a different pace. he didn’t care, he shouldn’t have cared in the first place.

he went home. 

—

in the following weeks, jiwon continued to hear murmurs outside his house, and he was left with restless nights and restless days when he used to do nothing but sleep throughout all hours of the day. 

sleep was his only freedom, sometimes. most of the time he went to sleep and in his dreams he was crying, he was always crying. he was crying around junhoe, around his mom, around his mom’s friends, around the people in his neighbourhood. he would wake up and he’d want to cry, but couldn’t. he didn’t know what was worse, crying or not being able to. 

sometimes he’d get a dream where he was a pilot, where he flew through the clouds and the sky and the entire world was under his feet. he laughed as he flew through the sky, careless and alone and free. he smiled, he yelled, he did things he hadn’t done in years. the wind accompanied him, hugged him and kept him safe from everything else,  made him feel like he deserved the freedom and all the love the wind could give.

but now he dreamed in red. in a colour red so bright that he heard his surroundings saying  _ pop  _ and he couldn’t get enough of it. the floor under him was red, the walls around him and the ceiling above and he didn’t care that he was in a house, enclosed as he always was. because he knew he could leave, he knew he could walk out of the red room and he wouldn’t have to stay there forever. 

was there a happiness beyond that? 

no one else seemed to like the red as much though. everyone believed he’d lost his mind, or that he came here with the sole intention of gaining their trust only to break it. 

it was ridiculous, to jiwon, but he grew up in this neighbourhood and wanted to believe that junhoe moved in to destroy what he found himself stuck in. maybe the lifestyle around here was to have crazy conspiracies about everything.

another man was shunned in the town, with secret wishful whispers of him moving out. it was childish and cruel of jiwon, but he was relieved that he finally wasn’t alone. another man would be as miserable as him, another man would know his pain, the emptiness and how alone it felt to be isolated by the only people you knew. 

but junhoe was different. he didn’t shut down in the same way jiwon did. he didn’t succumb to the whispers and spend his days indoors. he greeted jiwon with a smile whenever he entered the store, and had the same warmth he always had. 

maybe he has lost his mind, jiwon thought, but didn’t say anything to anyone else. not that anyone would listen, but he didn’t want to be as low as they were, to gossip about someone who didn’t do anything wrong. 

on his walks home from the store, jiwon always looked at junhoe’s house. it was like a single apple stood in the presence of lemons, one taste too familiar and another different, exciting. 

jiwon convinced himself that he didn’t care, but he spent too much time thinking about how easy it was for junhoe to paint his house without the town doing anything about it to not care.

maybe he did. maybe, but only a little. 

—

it was when jiwon couldn’t sleep again that he visited junhoe’s house. curiosity was beyond nerves and jiwon was too numb from the cold and from the rest of his life to have cared. besides, junhoe wouldn’t get anyone to listen to him if he spoke. he was the man that lost his mind. 

“hey,” junhoe said, and jiwon wondered if he was used to people visiting him at night, or if he was just a weirdly unbothered person, “come in.” he finished before jiwon could say anything. 

“i never expected you to come over.” he continued, once again talking too much though jiwon didn’t mind as he suddenly lost the ability to voice why he’d come over in the first place. 

it took a while of grunting and small talk, of shared memories of simple meetings ( _ i’ve never seen someone buy as many chips as when you first came into the store _ ). jiwon never responded how he thought junhoe would want him to, but junhoe didn’t stop talking, and though junhoe was obviously tired, he didn’t ask jiwon to go home. 

“why’d you paint your house?” jiwon finally asked, his voice small and weak, as if he was a child asking his father why he’d never come to see him. 

junhoe laughed. it was unexpected, and jiwon stared at him as he did so, not so much as twitching the corner of his mouth upwards in amusement. maybe some rumours are true. 

the one about this man losing his mind, though, that wasn’t true. and he could tell. his laugh was full of life, full of everything jiwon ever wanted for himself. his smile was crooked, his eyes bright and his lips the same shade of his house in the dark.

“is that all you came here for?” he asked, the cockiness making his question condescending, and suddenly jiwon didn’t want to be there anymore. “i was bored.” he answered, and said nothing else as if that was the most he could make of that answer. 

it was only when junhoe asked, “do you want to paint your house too?” that jiwon looked up from his lap, now hyperaware of how long he’d let his nails grow. “are you bored, too?” junhoe asked, his smile now relaxed but not any less condescending. 

“i’m depressed.” jiwon answered. his voice calm and his shame still as unmoving as ever, even after he’d caused junhoe’s unfaltering smile to fall. “i’m just trying to find a reason to stay.” 

junhoe didn’t say anything. for the first time since he moved in, jiwon saw him unable to talk and he wondered if he shouldn’t have said what he did. but if it wasn’t depression, what did everyone else think was keeping him at home?

“let’s paint your house tomorrow.” junhoe said with his smile now full of pity, but it was more than anything anyone else had shown him before, so jiwon accepted it and the offer without another word. 

—

“you’re really quiet, you know.” junhoe said as he was setting up the orange paint to paint the house with. jiwon grunted in response and junhoe laughed, as if he didn’t expect anything more. 

people started gathering around his house from the second they opened the paint cans, they spoke their thoughts more freely and said their opinions louder than they ever did for junhoe, but whenever jiwon looked over at him, the latter did nothing but smile and continue to paint. 

he wondered why he didn’t care about everyone else. jiwon knew why he himself didn’t, but he thought someone normal would care even a little. maybe junhoe wasn’t normal, then, but he didn’t know in what way.

they didn’t finish painting on the first day. he didn’t know how long it took junhoe to do his house, since he slept for the entirety save the beginning, but it took the both of them 3 days to complete all the orange coats. 

“we could’ve done that a lot faster if you didn’t move so slow.” junhoe said, though there was no malice in his voice, only pride and relief in the way the house looked. 

jiwon was scared of this project at first, scared that changing his house’s colour wouldn’t make him feel anything the same way the red did. but it did more than that, it made him feel like if he could change his house, then he could change himself. 

maybe it wouldn’t happen on the first day, or in 3 days, or in a week, but it would happen eventually. eventually, he’d be able to fly through some clouds, some red and some orange. 

and maybe the wind didn’t need to be the wind, maybe the wind just had to be a newcomer with a really big smile and warmth that he’d give to anyone, even him. 


	2. two

junhoe’s red in the tops of his ears and the tip of his nose when he goes left instead of right and takes the long route to jiwon’s house in the cold minutes before dawn just so he can watch the sky transition from pink, to purple, to blue. he’s orange in the light of the sunsets they wait for almost every night, when the shine is too much and jiwon looks away to watch him while he clenches his eyes shut and lets the orange waves wash over him like a tsunami with only one target. he’s white when the sky is black, when the darkness that usually hides anyone else instead illuminates junhoe in a way that would take anyone’s breath away. “you’re so pale,” jiwon would say, and junhoe would laugh, his teeth shining whiter than his skin.  _ the moon is nothing in comparison _ , jiwon would think, but never say out loud. 

he’s blue when jiwon locks his bedroom door without him inside and pink when the food he insists on cooking by himself ends up being too spicy; he’s green when he shows up at jiwon’s door with another bouquet of a flower he saw online, and yellow almost every single time he laughs. he is genuine in every colour he wears, and more vibrant than anything jiwon has ever seen. jiwon thinks it’s beautiful but he keeps it to himself. he knows the smile that would follow suit would cause his heart to skip beat after beat and he needed the blood in his veins (which would look grey next to the red of junhoe’s house) to run, if not in order to unlock another world of colours, then simply for the next sunset to watch. 

—

it didn’t take long for junhoe to become a regular visitor at jiwon’s front door. jiwon knew his sense of time was skewed since he found it was pointless to check what day it was of the week when he didn’t have anything to plan for, but he knew it didn’t take long. it had taken one day, maybe two, but it felt like only hours passed before his familiar life of quiet isolation was interrupted. 

the persistent knocks that woke him up from his naps caused him to long for the days where he could sleep for 13 hours without anyone interrupting. every single time, with no surprise on his end, he opened the door to meet the face of koo junhoe who lived a few houses down, worked at the only convenience store in the neighbourhood and who seemed to work much less than jiwon had originally thought (not that he thought about it very much). 

junhoe greeted jiwon with a smile that was too happy, a level of happiness that jiwon never thought he’d be able to reach.  _ no one’s that happy _ , he’d tell himself when his ache would shine through the smile he practiced in the bathroom mirror, when he looked like someone was forcing the corners of his mouth behind his head instead of actually smiling. 

at first, junhoe only visited him to finish painting his house. it took 3 days to complete the whole thing, and frankly the entire activity turned out to be exhausting in the moment more than it was empowering. 

it was exciting at the beginning, exciting to watch the dreary yellow he’d seen his entire life disappear under the bright orange that junhoe had brought over. it was the kind of orange that screamed at everyone about how orange it was; like the pumpkins that the children carved during halloween or the oranges he saw on television that never looked like real fruit to him. it was the kind of orange that breathed air into his lungs and pinched colour into his cheeks, he didn’t know if there was a colour more perfect than it, and didn’t know if junhoe knew that when he bought it for him. 

the entire morning of the first day, jiwon was happy. he was more than happy, even when the very loud whisperings of their neighbours who stared at the pair too long on their walks around the neighbourhood had overtaken the sound of bristles on a surface, even when the sun had decided to shine on his house for the entirety of the day...for a few minutes, at least.

“has the sun moved at all? time hasn’t stopped, right?” jiwon yelled when the irritation of the heat seeped through his cotton shirt and down his back, causing ripples in the happiness he had so proudly worn minutes before. 

“it’s only been three hours, jiwon, how much is it supposed to move?” junhoe yelled back from somewhere jiwon couldn’t see, but somewhere he could feel especially when the laugh that followed suit was so full of him that it grabbed jiwon by the hands and told him to smile— _ smile! the day’s only just started _ . but how much he already wanted it to end. 

he’d felt guilty later that night. guilty in the fact that he was irritable and annoyed by the man that did nothing but good by him, by a man who he had confided a world to and wasn’t shut out but instead taken in. junhoe would show up at his door the next morning, smiling as if his knees and shoulders weren’t aching from all the work the previous day, and jiwon would feel guilty that his heart clenched in distaste. 

he didn’t want to spend another day painting the remainder of the house, and if it was up to him he’d leave it how it already was. the almost half-and-half look would’ve been different enough for him. but he didn’t say any of this to junhoe, instead he painted the house with him, and was given a number of reassuring smiles from the latter that he never asked for while he stayed silent and staring. he did it not only because he believed junhoe’s kindness should’ve been met with gratitude, but also because he didn’t want junhoe to think the same thing his own mind was telling him.  _ this is why no one likes you, this is why you are the way you are. you’re given a chance to change something and you complain. you’re too lazy to change, too lazy to fix yourself. that’s why you’re here.  _

the thoughts were endless, and no one else was saying it to him but himself. if another voice was added in—if  _ junhoe’s  _ voice was added in, he wouldn’t know where another sliver of hope would lie. 

by the end of the third day, when the last coats were drying and jiwon knew he didn’t have to pick up a paintbrush again, the irritation disappeared almost immediately. junhoe smiled at him as he walked over to look at the house from the same angle jiwon was at, and for the first time since before the start of the project, jiwon found comfort in the wordless expression. 

“you move really slow,” junhoe said after only seconds of admiring the work they had done, “we could’ve finished it yesterday if you worked as fast as me.”. 

the paint shone in the dark of the night sky and the beauty of it, the relief of being done, and the joy he found in having someone joking with him, had caused jiwon to be thankful that he had gone through with it instead of going back to bed as he wished so terribly to do. 

everyone else had gone home at this point, no one seemed to stay out past dark unless there was a festival going on or they were still working and it made jiwon feel as if he and junhoe were the only people that lived there, the only people in the world. 

“i’ll come over later?” junhoe asked, breaking the thought that jiwon really wanted to keep, “after i clean up. we can get food,” he suggested, and something in the middle of jiwon’s chest twinged. he nodded, and didn’t move from his spot, not even when junhoe had begun to walk home, and not when he looked back at him about eighteen times to check if he was still standing there. the laugh he had grown bothered with before that moment echoed through the empty streets just before junhoe went inside his home, and wrapped around jiwon like a pair of arms he’d never want to leave.

he smiled, or at least he hoped he was, and even if the whole neighbourhood was covered in pitch black, he still saw the oranges and reds of the street. 

—

that was how it began, and how it remained. the endless knocking, the doorbells, the unexpected visits and endless takeout. at first it was at jiwon’s house, but when he complained about the more expensive electricity and water bill that he’d have to pay for, junhoe only knocked on his door so he could ask jiwon to come over, and walk him from the orange house to the red.

“why don’t you have a phone?” junhoe asked him one day on their way to his house. an elderly couple was walking the opposite direction, and upon seeing the shunned on a stroll together, they crossed the street and huddled like penguins as if nonconformity was contagious and  _ huddling  _ was a preventative shield. 

“i do have one. i use it to play games,” jiwon replied, expecting more probing though none followed. instead junhoe laughed, but not loud and open-mouthed as he usually did, he was laughing softly and almost to himself, as if a joke only he was in on. he was admiring the simplicity in jiwon, but he didn’t say so. they often kept these thoughts from each other. 

they didn’t do much when they went to each other’s houses. they talked a lot, and jiwon often wondered when it was that junhoe went to work. “it’s only part-time,” junhoe once answered him, but the mystery of him always being around was always more magical than that in jiwon’s eyes.

mostly, jiwon slept. if not for an hour or two then for five or eight. he told junhoe it was because that’s what he did at home, and since junhoe insisted on interrupting these naps, he’d insist on continuing them. junhoe liked to think it was because his place felt like home to jiwon, too. that he was comfortable enough to let himself be so vulnerable as to close his eyes and slacken both posture and heart on an unfamiliar couch and let himself drift away.

sometimes (which means almost all the time) junhoe would let the curiosity get the best of him, and he’d linger his gaze on jiwon a second too long while he slept. his eyes could look over the features of an unguarded face that one didn’t take extra effort to control a thousand times, and still he’d look with the same interest on the thousand and first. he had the many faces jiwon wore in his slumber etched into his mind by the fifth time he’d done it. it was almost routine now: knock on jiwon’s door, walk him over, feed him, talk to him, let him sleep, watch for a bit. maybe longer than a bit. 

one time jiwon woke up while junhoe had just gotten to the curve of his bottom lip, and when jiwon moved his mouth to ask if something was wrong, junhoe looked at his eyes and had been so shocked from the other pair unexpectedly looking back at him that his body physically jerked and he knocked his knee into the coffee table next to the couch. what followed suit was a cloud of pain and jiwon apologizing for something he didn’t do. 

yet still, that didn’t stop him from watching the next time. or this time. maybe it was weird, but the relaxed line of jiwon’s brow where they were usually furrowed together made it something worth looking at. the way his mouth hung open just a little, and the way his long, shaggy hair fell away from his face for once had made being considered weird a little bit worth risking. 

“what do you do when I sleep?” jiwon had asked him once, and the question alone had caused junhoe’s heart to skip a beat. 

“i go to work,” he answered. and, sometimes, he did. it wasn’t until jiwon started coming over that he realized how lonely he had been, too. 

—

a month and a half had passed before the first time jiwon didn’t answer the door. before then, they spent every single day together. so much so that the kids that lived in the houses that lay between their own would gather the other kids on their schoolyard and talk about them walking back and forth.

“what do you think they’re doing?” someone had asked once, and an epic about the spells they cast and the dolls they’d make in attempts to control everyone in the neighbourhood would ensue. eventually, the whole school of kids knew that junhoe and jiwon were warlocks who had recreated the entire neighbourhood’s population with voodoo dolls, waiting and plotting for the perfect moment to exact their revenge on everybody. and, eventually, the story spread from the school and into the homes of the students, to the ears of their parents. 

the tales of the newcomer and the one that never belonged trying to exact their revenge became something the whole neighbourhood was buzzing about. they found amusement in the idea of it, and when they saw the two together, walking to one house or the other, or to the market, or to the park, they made up stories of their own. 

“do you think those ingredients are part of a potion?” they’d say to each other at the supermarket as the two roamed the aisles, looking for fruit since junhoe insisted that jiwon couldn’t live off of chips for the rest of his life. 

they didn’t try to keep down, either. jiwon heard every word they said, and junhoe would feel him freeze next to him. he’d fight not to turn his head to look at the people who spoke, and junhoe would fight not to turn his head and look at him. 

and he was tired of it, jiwon was tired of it. 

not tired of junhoe, not even tired of the way that he acted like he didn’t care when he didn’t know how someone could face such irritating accusations without caring. he was tired of being made a spectacle, of being a joke that he wasn’t a part of, one that he didn’t want to be a part of. for once he was happy, and the happiness he had finally found was now mocked for doing nothing but existing. 

so he didn’t answer the door because he didn’t want to see every person they pass on the street looking at them with snickers that lay in their eyes, in the smiles that he knew they were keeping away only temporarily.

“jiwon?” he heard behind the door, muffled and lost in a way that he could hear the expression junhoe would be wearing while he said it. his heart ached, and something in him told him to open the door, to block out the stares and the whispers that he had so easily done before. but it was as if now that his heart had eased, closing it again was the last thing he could do. was it anything he even wanted to do anymore? he didn’t know, and didn’t want to think about it while the man who had assured him it was okay to let go of his tight grip stood waiting for him to answer his voice.

so maybe he caused junhoe to walk home alone that afternoon, and maybe the neighbourhood would talk about how the warlocks were fighting, but at least they’d stop laughing. or he hoped they would. not for his sake, but for junhoe’s. he wouldn’t hear the laughter from within his walls, but junhoe hears everything, his heart is so big that it reaches out and takes everything in. 

could he hear jiwon when he exhaled at the sound of footsteps walking away? did he hate him for it? could he hear jiwon when he curled up into his blanket? when he stopped holding back and finally let himself cry, now that he knew he wouldn’t be interrupted? did he hear the first one all the way to the last? 

he let the world that was built on smiles and laughter come down with a few words and what was he left with? the afternoon sun streaming into his house and no one waiting for him outside his front door. something in him twisted in pain, and the hole that had just started to build itself back up crumbled with desperation.

—

the days were slower without junhoe, and he stopped keeping count so it all meshed together into one really long day that never seemed to have ended. 

he didn’t go back to eating chips immediately, but he didn’t know how big of an impact eating only carrots was going to give him, and they were too expensive so he went back to the name brands he had been living off of before. he also made a big deal of waiting until he saw junhoe walking home before restocking again. he felt pathetic, but also felt as if it was necessary. he didn’t want to give junhoe an even worse look in the eyes of the other residents, and he knew his presence would only taint what was not yet tainted. 

he felt as if his life was still surrounded around his schedule, and there was a voice at the back of his head insulting him for how dependent he had become. 

but he wasn’t, not entirely. he got his own food and he drank at least some water, he made sure his hair never got so oily that it’d leave residue on his fingers and when the white walls of his house stared back at him, empty and daunting, he bought his own paint. he bought three shades of red, blue, purple, black and two shades of green. he bought enough paint brushes so each can would have one, and considered getting a job at the department store since the cashier didn’t look at him as weirdly as everyone else did, and so he didn’t have to worry about running out of money. it took a few hours before he’d forgotten that the job was even in contemplation. 

for the next four weeks jiwon laid out the eight cans of paint he had bought and opened them all. he didn’t paint from the start, he looked at the paint in the can instead and admired the thickness of it, the way it curled around the brush as he stirred it around as if following it around, as if it could never bare to let go of the wooden handle that had no place in there to begin with. 

it was 3 in the morning when he first painted. he had slept in the afternoon and had woken up only an hour before, with the fatigue behind him and a sense of wanting to see new colours itching at his arms, his fingers, his toes, his heart. 

he started with the black paint, and seeing the dark colour swallow the white walls had been so breathtaking that he heard himself exhale, like the swift erasure of the walls that had nothing to offer had reached into his throat and grabbed the oxygen in his lungs. he painted the entire wall black that night with no rest, and no sun causing the back of his neck to feel like it was burning. and even if his windows weren’t open to allow the night breeze to stream in, he knew he still would’ve gotten chills. 

it took ji won four weeks to finish painting the 3 walls that surrounded his living room and faced his kitchen because he got tired of doing it quickly. he was exhausted after only an hour or two once his black wall had been completed, but he used the painting as something to pass the time with, and it was something that he had grown to enjoy. 

once the black wall had dried he painted over it using the brighter colours; the light red and blue which he had picked for their vibrance. he never painted anything specifically, it was more like him dragging his paintbrush along the wall until the bristles had run out of paint. he wasn’t sure if it was beautiful, but it made him feel alive.

he’d gotten paint on the floors and on his feet, his clothes, his hands, and inevitably on his face and hair as well of which he only saw when he looked in the mirror (which wasn’t very often). he didn’t bother to clean up, he felt like the paint getting on anything else but the walls was a way of them spreading their life to him. he didn’t know when he started thinking in such a positive way, but the faint hint of a familiar smile beat in the back of his mind. 

the wall to the front of his house was painted red, and only red. the three shades of red mixed and coexisting on the same wall and the entire time jiwon had coloured the walls with red paint he could hear the blood surging through his ears, he could feel his chest running faster and faster and he could feel his hand’s grip tightening as if he was taking something out on the wall, on the red paint, that he couldn’t on anyone else. he poured his heart into the wall and where anyone else would see brush strokes, he saw tears, he saw screams he could never turn into reality, he saw hearts that had long since seen each other. 

he missed junhoe, was the conclusion he came to. he missed the stories that junhoe would tell him of the life he lived outside of this neighbourhood. he missed the stories of the strange things the customers at the convenience store did, or of the thoughts he had while he was walking home. he missed seeing junhoe smile or hearing him laugh when jiwon answered anything, only to assure him that he wasn’t laughing at him maliciously. he missed the way that junhoe would reach over and push his hair away from his face, saying  _ your hair always covers up your face, it shouldn’t.  _ he missed the warmth that the simple gesture gave, and how the way his palm brushed his forehead, how his fingers tangled in his hair, was enough to get jiwon’s heart racing. 

he missed it, he missed him, and the knocks that failed to come that day were louder than ever before. 

—

it took jiwon exactly three hours and five minutes after declaring the makeover of his walls finished before he could muster the courage to walk over to junhoe’s house. well, he wasn’t exactly  _ mustering courage  _ more than he was contemplating about how large of an extent junhoe now hated him for disappearing without a word while picking at the paint that dried on his hands. 

it was when he told himself that junhoe’s heart was too big to hate him completely and permanently that he finally stepped out of the front door, forgetting to take his shoes and his jacket with him, but not feeling the cold due to how hard his heart was beating against his chest and how fast his blood was running through his veins. 

when he knocked on junhoe’s door, he only had enough time to think  _ a big heart that you hurt  _ before it had opened. 

“jiwon?” junhoe asked, and there was no hatred in his eyes, no resentment. there was worry and confusion, but mostly worry, and jiwon didn’t understand how someone could be so selfless and so compassionate that they could be ignored for two months and harbor no negative feelings towards the one who ignored them. jiwon couldn’t believe that such a person could exist, but they did, and they were in front of him now, saying his name again that brought him out of the frozen shock his eyes had put him in. “jiwon. it’s cold, you’re not wearing anything. come in.” 

“i’m sorry,” jiwon said without coming in, and he didn’t know how to continue, but junhoe didn’t say anything. he looked at jiwon like he was expecting something, and jiwon didn’t know what he wanted to hear. he only knew what he felt, and he didn’t know if it would be good enough. “i’m sorry that i didn’t answer the door. i’m sorry that you became my friend and i left you in the cold when no one else was taking you in anymore. i treated you like everyone else treats me and i wasn’t thinking about what it would do to you. i’m a bad friend, junhoe, but i’m sorry, and i—” 

junhoe didn’t need, nor did he want, to hear the rest of the apology. he let go of the doorknob he was using to widen the entrance for jiwon and pulled him inside, pulled him towards him so he could hold his face in his hands like he’d wanted to for so long and kiss the apology away from his lips which could do no wrong in his eyes or his ears or to his heart. the heat that started at his mouth and spread throughout his whole body had only heightened when he felt jiwon kissing him back, and he could feel the heat in his own cheeks, in jiwon’s cheeks. there was never a greater tell that you were alive, than to be kissed. and this was the first time in a long time that he felt really alive. 

it wasn’t an easy thing to do, for jiwon to kiss him back. he’d never kissed anybody in his life and the warmth of junhoe’s house, of his hands and of his mouth rid him of thought, of contemplation and he kissed back before he could think about whether he even knew how to kiss or not. he stumbled forward when he wanted to be closer despite how close they were already, and he felt for a moment that they’d fall on the ground together, and he wouldn’t mind if they did. 

instead junhoe smiled at him, with his face flushed and his lips reminding him of the red wall in his house. “why are you so messy?” he asked.

and now it was jiwon’s turn to smile, “i was painting.” 

—

one time junhoe asked him, “ are you still depressed?” after jiwon had laughed at a joke he had made. the question was asked with sincerity, and with the hilarity of the joke completely gone in his eyes. jiwon looked at him for a while, admiring the wholeheartedness that defined who junhoe was before nodding. his heart ached when disappointment so clearly swam in junhoe’s eyes, but how could jiwon lie to him? 

“i don’t think it goes away that fast,” jiwon explained, taking junhoe’s hand and kissing the back of it as he now so often did, “i don’t think i can go my whole life feeling like that, and have it go away in a couple of weeks. but i’m better,” he reassured, and junhoe looked at him like he was taking in every word with thrice the weight he needed to, which jiwon was sure that he really was. 

“there’s hope in the skies, in the grass, in the paint, in you. i don’t need to run away anymore,” and finally junhoe smiled, and jiwon admired it just as he did the very first time he saw it. 

the skies could change, the grass could wilt, the paint he had on his walls and on his house could fade away, but the smile the junhoe shared with him and with the people who didn’t deserve it would never change, and he could feel himself falling in love with it every time he saw it.


	3. three

the first thing junhoe learned about jiwon was that he slept…a lot. as in  _ a lot  _ a lot. when he first moved in, the only constant he would be told about jiwon is that he never left his house. and so he got curious about what someone could do locked up like that every hour of the day. now he knew the answer.

but it wasn’t a bother to junhoe. he moved away from his family’s house because he needed quiet, needed space. the presence of someone on his couch or in his bed without the constant exhaustion of socializing was a balance he never would’ve dared to wish for so selfishly.

when he heard about the neighbourhood that served as a village more than an actual neighbourhood in the outskirts of the city, junhoe’s initial assumption was that everyone would be friends with each other. maybe it was the movies he watched, maybe it was the relentless yelling between his parents that pierced through his thin walls and into his heart that caused him to hope for such a bright place. either way, when the first thing he had been greeted with were warnings of the man that lived a few houses down from him, he wondered if every heart was destined to be so hateful. he wondered if his would become that way eventually, too. 

despite their hatred, he welcomed everyone in the neighbourhood with a smile that caused his cheeks to ache after a few minutes because he was taught manners by the teachers who scolded him and his mother who would never risk being embarrassed with a mannerless child. truthfully, moving in was exhausting. there may not have been many people in the neighbourhood but each one insisted on being his guide, his best friend, his lover. all except one. 

jiwon turned on his side, now facing junhoe and interrupting his trip down terrible memory lane. junhoe didn’t move a muscle, and instead watched him as he settled into his new position, watched the lines of his face disappear with the presence of the newfound comfort. 

_ you’re beautiful, jiwon.  _ he wanted to say, the words at the tip of his tongue along with a million kisses that would not all be given tonight, but would be if he was given the choice. he didn’t want to wake jiwon even if he’d been asleep for the last six hours, even if his heart ached to hear his voice again, to feel his fingers tangle with his and squeeze his hand in silent reassurance. 

the twenty-fifth thing jiwon learned about junhoe was that he needed reassurance constantly. that he felt like a burden because of it, but jiwon made sure to never make him feel as if he was one. not when he needed the reassurance just as bad, and especially not when junhoe lent his house to jiwon as if it was his own. 

they were on junhoe’s bed now, after he had woken jiwon up to move from the small couch. a gesture of care for him, but also selfishness in that he wanted to be close to him and there wasn’t enough room on the couch. 

junhoe brushed his thumb along the corner of jiwon’s eye, eliciting furrowed brows that only lasted for a second, possibly two. he smiled at the sight of it, despite the words of their neighbours ringing in his ears. 

_ he only scowls at us. all of us. he hates it here. he hates us.  _

at least they were right about something. he hated it here, he still does. but they could never know that the scowls were not for them, that the hatred was not for them. everything jiwon hated was in himself, in the flowers that grew away from him, in the sky that was dark only for him and not for anyone else.

it took a while for junhoe to learn this about him, to know that the moments of jiwon needing time to himself were not because he did anything wrong, but because sometimes jiwon just needed to be alone. in moments like that, when he’d have to go through days or even weeks without jiwon coming over, he could feel his heart breaking. 

it had gotten better now, they were not co-dependent but jiwon wouldn’t fail to send junhoe a text despite not coming over. they worked well together, with so many talks of their feelings and insecurities showing each other what they needed. at one point it felt like all they ever did with one another was rip themselves open and show the other every dark spot they had caged inside themselves for longer than they ever had to.

they could not fix each other but they did not cast their darknesses away, they did not put a hammer and nails in each other’s hands and ask to be brought back to life. they still learn how to live without being consumed by every hole that exists in them. they still learn how happiness can coexist with a sense of dread, how they aren’t destined to cry forever, how the dread is not perpetual, how happiness and joy welcomes them too. 

“junhoe,” jiwon said, with his voice so groggy that junhoe would’ve convinced himself he was only sleeptalking had he not taken his hand. the feeling of their palms finally pressed together had filled him with a warmth that would be unmatched unless he ever had the chance to lay his hand on the surface of the sun without disintegrating on the spot. “junhoe,” he said again, and the half-worry in his voice was dismissed when junhoe had met jiwon’s lips with his own as if to state his presence, “i’m thirsty.” 

twenty minutes later, and jiwon was asleep again, with an almost finished glass of water by his side and water on his shirt that he hadn’t noticed he spilled. 

it was all the simple things in jiwon, in his messy hair and his crooked teeth and the fact that he slept his days away that junhoe had fallen in love with. he hadn’t told him yet, that he loved him. but he figured that jiwon would have known if he stayed awake for long enough. 

_ don’t bother trying to be his friend,  _ they told him,  _ he’s just going to end up hating you, too. _

but never could they have seen the brightness in his smile, or feel the warmth of his cheeks despite how cold it could be outside. they never could have seen the sun in his eyes and still say those words to him as if jiwon didn’t own the biggest heart in the entire neighbourhood, in the entire world. 

“you’re beautiful, jiwon,” he finally said, with his fingers brushing his hair away from his face and his eyes holding the gaze that eventually jiwon had looked at him with. he was confused and sleepy and junhoe was in love with him more than he had been in love with anything else. and if not in words, then he’d express it in action and the million kisses that he’d stored up for later were pouring out of him now. jiwon could barely keep his head up or his lips in shape but it was all the same to junhoe, who held jiwon’s face in his hands as he kissed him more times than he or jiwon could begin to count. 

“are you okay?” jiwon asked with laughter in his voice, his eyes finally awake and his cheeks flushed with pink once junhoe had let the both of them breathe.

“let’s move,” junhoe answered, and jiwon had almost froze in his spot, “to the city or to the country. i don’t care, but let’s move from here. they probably want to paint our houses already. we could get a place, or two places near each other somewhere else. we can.” he said with more urgency and nervousness than he thought he would. his heart was hammering against his chest, in his ears, and the thought of moving away with jiwon had started to grow so big that it was all he could now see.

jiwon was silent to this suggestion for one or five moments longer than junhoe wanted him to be, but he waited for jiwon to answer first, with his hands never leaving his cheeks and his heart never leaving his throat until jiwon had spoken up again. 

“i didn’t think i could leave…i didn’t think that was possible for me.” 

“with me,” junhoe answered, his heart lighter than ever though about to explode at the same time, “you can do it with me.” 

—

jiwon was yellow against the rays of the sun that shone through the airplane window and covered him in a blanket of light, and yellower still when he pulled down the blinds and looked at junhoe with a smile that was more vibrant than any ray from any star that existed. he was pink in his cheeks and in the tips of his fingers when he squeezed junhoe’s hand harder than he intended at the feeling of the airplane’s engine roaring underneat his seat, and green when they were landing once again and he felt his stomach pushing against his skin. he was orange next to his white shirt, and glowing neon under the soft rays of the sun setting behind him. he was beautiful at every second junhoe saw him, and his heart glowed brightest of all. 

jiwon was red in his tongue that hung out in every picture junhoe took of him, red when junhoe would kiss him in public and redder still when he would kiss junhoe back. he was red when junhoe came home after a long day of missing him, red when the leaves started to grow orange and turn into his favourite season, red when junhoe’s kisses landed on his neck instead of his cheek. he was red while curled up in junhoe’s arms as he slept, red when he laid in junhoe’s arms while he was awake. he was red in junhoe’s hands, in his eyes, in his laugh and in his heart. 

he was red in his veins that rushed with every touch they shared and in the quickly beating heart he had managed to settle into, which sounded the syllables of his name and even louder the welcome of every one of his colours, red or not.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW!!! it's finally done!!!!!! thanks for reading this far i love u all thank you for every kudos, every comment, every hit, i appreciate it more than i can ever say i hope u all enjoyed this very mundane story my next one will be more exciting i promise


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